Ride Into the Danger Zone (Part Four)

Therapy. They sent me to therapy. Because there was no way the Danger Room could activate itself and there was no way it would try to kill anyone.

Fuck. Everything.

"I'm not crazy," I said to start things off... because that was how you wanted to start off a mental counseling session, "I just want to get that out of the way now, no matter what else happens here."

I was always going to see a shrink after everything that had happened to me recently, but with the little situation that had happened the night before, it was mandated that my sessions would be fast-tracked, just to make sure everything was all good with yours truly upstairs.

I probably wouldn't have been so pissed about it if it had just taken the normal amount of time that they were going to give me before sending me in. This seemed totally reactionary and unnecessary to boot. I was absolutely within my right frame of mind. Then again, they could have figured that it was a case of Bellamy doth protest too much.

After all, crazy people never thought that they were crazy.

Goddamn Emma Frost... with her fine self, sitting across the room with a notepad... judging me.

The couch was comfortable as heck, though. Would it have been weird to get a therapy couch for my own private use?

Miss Frost took a look at me over her notes. I wouldn't have put it past her to just be doodling something and acting like she was writing down what I was saying, "I never said you were."

I sniffed and pawed at the large butterfly bandage covering the stitches across the bridge of my nose. I hadn't ever slept or lost consciousness, so my accelerated healing never kicked in, leaving me to do it the old-fashioned way, "You and Cyclops stuck me in here."

"It was either this, or detention for playing in the Danger Room," Miss Frost deadpanned, "I'm certain the first thing your advisor told you was to never enter the Danger Room without a member of the senior staff accompanying you."

I had been singing the same song and dance since the night before. It was rough not getting the benefit of the doubt. In the end, schools really were all the same. Teachers heard and perceived what they wanted to, "I wasn't playing in there, I swear," I tried to reason, to no avail, "Look, I don't even know how to load simulations. I didn't go up into the viewing deck at all. The main door was open and I heard people in there."

I was getting louder, she heard my temper getting worse, she sent me a mental cue, "Calm down, Mister Marcher," I took a breath and did what she asked. Calm and cool. No need to fly off the handle just yet, "Let's move away from that for now. It's just going to agitate you if we keep on that point," Fine with me. She wasn't listening to begin with, "Tell me, how are you doing?"

"As in...?" I bit back at her, "If you're talking about right now, I'm sure you can probably guess."

She just smiled at me in an 'oh-you're-so-adorable-that-you-think-I-care-you're-upset' kind of way. I was not going to throw off Emma Frost in the snark and sass department. My little arms were too small to box with that particular god.

"No one ever spoke with you about what happened, with your abduction, I mean."

I flipped onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I just wanted to relax and get this over as soon as possible, with no follow-up meetings scheduled later, "I don't know what there is to talk about. I told you what happened. I let you go through my head to see what I remember. Speaking of which-."

She rolled her eyes and cut me off before I suggested that she read my mind to see that I was telling the truth, if she hadn't done that from the first second this had all started, "Don't be deflective, Mister Marcher. You're a smart boy. That much is clear by how you were able to work your way out of trouble. Your team has also seemed to improve on their marks since you've been indoctrinated as a Paladin."

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It was weird to get credit for what was perceived as a complete turnaround for my friends. I was just a cog in that machine; a piece that made it go, "It's just a numbers thing. Only the three of them wasn't enough when everyone else's team has like five or six."

I could feel the amusement radiating off of her, or maybe she was projecting it into my head to try and get a rise out of me, "You give yourself far too little credit, but that's fine. I'm waiting to see how you all do during this round of squad challenges. Of course, it will take quite the improvement if you want to get anywhere near the score of my Hellions."

Yep. Definitely trying to get a rise out of me on that one. It almost worked.

I calmly and rationally let her know that I was willing to accept the challenge of overcoming her students, "I can't think of anything more fun than the idea of putting a sour look on your golden boy's face," I said, slowly turning my head in her direction, "It sounds like a hell of a way to spend the day... ma'am."

"Do you feel like you have something to prove?"

Ah, an anchor question. This was a therapy session, after all. Well, honesty was a commendable trait, wasn't it? "Yes. To Miss Pryde, to you, to every actual X-Man in this place. To the other students who just see me as the new kid," I admitted shamelessly, "I'm not going to say I have a chip on my shoulder, but when I choose to do something, I want to be as good at it as possible. I hate failing."

Miss Frost wrote something down and let what I said settle before asking me something else, "Do you feel like you failed that day when you and Miss Aldine were taken?" That one hit a little closer to home.

"...Yes."

Even if worse things happened to me, even if I saw worse things happen, I was probably never going to forget how terrified Ruth looked when I broke into her cell and found her chained with her telepathy cut off.

For the first time in probably a long time, she really was completely blind. Absolutely helpless. I was the only one who could do anything, and I still needed Saberwolf just to put up a fight. Without him, I would have never made it out. The Reavers would have cut me into a sloppy mess, and they would have done God knows what to Ruth.

After seeing something like that, and knowing I made a difference, even a little bit, I couldn't just put it to the back of my mind, "I came here to learn how to fight for myself and the people that would catch hell because I was a mutant and hanging around them," "Ruth can't... fight for herself. Not yet. Not until she learns something like the kinds of telepath tricks you've got."

She wasn't great at hand-to-hand, even when she did know where her targets were. Without that, telepathic attacks were her best bet. I had never seen her use any. To that end, we kept her away from the action whenever we could and kept someone with her who could keep her safe if things went badly while the other two did the lion's share of the fighting.

We were starting to find ways to use her telepathy to help us coordinate in the field, maybe in coordination with her foresight if we could figure out a way to actually make it productive, but that still needed a lot of bugs worked out. A lot of the time, even when she was trying, her messages were still vague and took some effort to discern. That wasn't great for issuing suggestions and doling out advice during a heated situation.

I knew she could be something special. I wanted to see it happen. Maybe that was why I had such a soft spot for her? Maybe it was just because she was the first person who reached out to me. Showed that she wanted to even know who I was.

And what had I done to help her? Nothing but let her get captured by the same assholes who took me.

All of that went through my mind, and I had no doubt that Miss Frost had seen it all.

"You put a lot of pressure on yourself," She said, setting her notepad aside. She wasn't patronizing me or trying to get any sort of reaction out of me. This was a straightforward conversation now, "All of those things going through your mind and the trauma that came with your experience with the Reavers may be playing heavy on your mind. Have you had any dreams?"

Now that was worth a good chuckle, "I don't sleep, Miss Frost."

She seemed surprised, which confused me until I realized that I hadn't exactly told anyone I hadn't been sleeping. Only Dr. McCoy knew, because he was the one who basically warned me about it in the first place. Not that I was trying to hide it, but it just never came up, and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it anyway, so I never talked about it.

"How long has this been going on?" She asked. Dear lord, I think there was a honest-to-goodness touch of concern there. A quick check out of window showed that no, the sky was not falling. I mean, hell could have been freezing over, but I had no idea how to check on that.

...Yet.

Regardless, it was too late to take it back now. The cat was out of the bag, "Since I've gotten my powers, pretty much," I said, soldiering on, "If I really overdo things during the day, I can get an hour or two every so often, but other than that..." I trailed off.

Miss Frost launched into a whole educator's spiel with just that little bit of prompting. I had to hand it to her, the woman really was a teacher, "Sleep does more than just allow you to replenish your physical strength. You may not need to rest your body due to the unique makeup of your mutant physiology, but your there is such a thing as mental fatigue."

I was able to get to the finish line of what she was trying to tell me before she could go too much farther, "So not sleeping will drive me crazy?"

"There is a chance," She said with a nod, "You going without any kind of decent sleep for several weeks, along with the stressful experiences you've been dealing with may very well be affecting your mind."

Oh no. They weren't going to blame what I saw the night before on being out-of-my-mind tired. I was fine. I wasn't seeing things. I wasn't hearing things. I wasn't sleepwalking, or any of that crap. But the writing was on the wall at this point. There wasn't anything I could say that would make anyone change my mind... because I was the new kid.

You know... just to tie it back in with the whole 'something to prove' mindset.

I sat upright and swung my feet over the side of the couch, planting them solidly on the floor, "I'm in my right mind. I wasn't hallucinating. I didn't do all of that stuff myself," I said, laying everything out there calmly. I needed to make this as clear as possible, "I'm telling you, the Danger Room ran its own simulations and tried to kill me. I wouldn't send anyone in there until you guys figure out what's wrong with it."

Miss Frost pursed her lips. She knew I was telling the truth. She probably knew the entire time. And this little session wasn't proving that I was crazy. That could only leave the technology as the problem, right? "We've been checking for malfunctions and running tests ever since we pulled you out of there, Mister Marcher," She told me, "We haven't found anything out of the ordinary."

And that was that. All the air was sucked right out of me. Of course they didn't find anything. And if they couldn't it wasn't like I had a way to prove my point otherwise.

If the Danger Room really was aware, if it was smart enough to communicate with me, to set up those scenarios on its own, if it really did have an attitude problem, it would know that showing its hand now was the worst thing it could do. It would stay docile. It would hide. What it did with me was just it testing the waters. Now that it knew its own capabilities, it wouldn't do anything else until there was something good for it to sink its teeth into.

As morbid a thought as it was, maybe getting myself killed in that high-tech mouse trap would have been better for everyone else than me making it out?

I rested my elbows on my thighs and ran my hands across my face, "I really hope nothing really bad happens," I said under my breath. But because of how quiet the office was, I was heard very clearly.

"And why would you say such a thing?"

"Because later, I'm going to say, 'I told you so'. And I don't want it to be bittersweet."